Progress

I've been working on a few things in the studio this week.  One of them is Hadar's white bronze clay.  A friend had sent me a photo of something she made with it, and I knew I had to try.  White bronze has a nice rich silver like appearance.  I ran my first two test pieces as I decided the best approach was to keep a firing log book.  Things didn't quite work out as planned (as you can see by the photo below).  There were a number of emails back and forth with Hadar (who is a saint, extremely knowledgeable and very helpful) who suggested a few things I might try to help.  Every kiln is different and you have to really get to know your kiln.  I had purchased one of the fiber boxes from the PMC Connection.  They're great, except I didn't really know how much they held the heat.  So much so, that if I took the box out of the kiln and left it out for the night, my carbon would turn to total ash.  So, the only thing I could do, due to Hadars 2-phase firing (and the piece, as well as the kiln, had to be cooled down for the next phase) was remove the box and literally remove this extremely hot carbon out of the fiber box to cool it down.  The first time I did it, I have to say was a little nerve-racking.  I was waiting for the phone to ring just when I had the carbon in the spatula which would cause me to jump and thereby having these red hot flakes fly all over.  You get the picture.  And no, I usually don't jump when the phone rings, but I might have been holding my breath, just a little.

This was my first test piece.  Actually, it was two lentil shape pieces which one had blistered from overheating .  The two smaller pieces to the left was what came off of the piece on the right.  They were a surprise when I found them in another area of the box.  Needless to say, I had to reduce the temperature for the first firing (and the second as well).


After the next piece was fired through the 1st phase, I wasn't sure the binder had burned off, so I put it through for another phase.  And finally the sintering phase was reached.  It's magical when you take your piece out of the kiln, (when it looks like something that's been sitting out in the yard for a few years) and begin to clean it up and turns out looking like this.

The biggest lesson I learned working with Hadar's clay is you have to do test pieces.  There's no way around it.  And if you keep a log book, there's no guessing involved.  Everything is documented.  It's something that is so unlike me to do, to be that organized, but it will serve me well in the future. 

Right now, I've made a test piece of her pearl grey steel. and hope to fire it tomorrow.  I wanted to be able to compare her white bronze against it.

The other thing I've been working on, if you've been reading this blog, is faux morrisonite.  It's definitely a process but each day I seem to learn a little more.  Yesterday I worked on a pattern I was trying to replicate - not morrisonite, but ocean waves.  Last week I had made a bead for the BAO color challenge that I really liked.  It had a nice ocean kind of feel to it.  But of course, I couldn't remember for the life of me how I did it.  (Log book here would have helped - another lesson learned.).  Anyway, I think I've figured it out and the bead on the left was the first bead I made in that process.  The idea was to have one daylight ocean waves on one side and an evening ocean on the other side (bead in the middle).  The bead on the right is the original I was trying to replicate.  So yeah, there's room for improvement. But through this process, I think I've learned something that will help me get one step closer to the morrisonite.

And lastly, I took something from my studio that was a gazillion years old and am finally going to use it.  How many of you have tons of projects that you started, or have supplies hanging around you keep meaning to get to?  When I did my first metal clay workshop, it must have been 1999 or 2000.  I've literally had a lump of metal clay that was now hard as a rock, unfired.  But through the guild, I learned of something easy I could use to help with this clay.  It's a pill crusher.  I took some pictures so you get the idea.  Once I shaved pieces off the lump, put them in the pill crusher, they basically turn to powder and can be reconstituted pretty easily.  I have done this with some PMC 3.  But take a look at the date on the left.  It had an expiration date of 8/31/01!  I can now add sprays of distilled water to it and make it workable again.  How awesome is that?  

Tell me your studio stories, what's in your closet and how long has it been there?